Take your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 1.

Let's go ahead and read the first verse.

[1] The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Isaiah 1:1 (KJV)

We're going to start a series through the book of Isaiah on Sunday nights. I'm a couple months away from being your pastor now for 15 years, and in those 15 years I've preached through most of the Bible, but I've stayed away from the prophets of Israel. I've especially stayed away from what are called the "major prophets": Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. And of these three, Isaiah is the one that scares me the most.

It scares me because it's 66 chapters long. Sixty-six chapters is a lot of Old Testament prophecy. It's taken us a couple years to go through the book of Luke, which is only 24 chapters long. I'm kinda scared that if we get into the book of Isaiah, I'm gonna have gray hair and grandkids before I'm done.

But we are going to do this. We're not going to get through the whole book tonight. Tonight we're just coming up to the front porch. We're not getting a tour through the whole house. We're going to mostly take a look at the book of Isaiah from the outside and understand why the book of Isaiah is important. Then we are going to look at verse 1 again and talk about the basic who, what, and when of this book.

Let's pray and we'll get into this.

Tonight we are going to talk about why this is an important book, then we are going to talk about how the book introduces itself.

1. Three reasons Isaiah is an important book.

I am not in favor of skipping any book of the Bible. All of Scripture is important and all of it is necessary for us. If there was a book to skip, it certainly wouldn't be the book of Isaiah. Isaiah stands apart as one of the most important books in the Old Testament for three reasons.

Isaiah is important because it is some of the most quoted scripture in the New Testament.

Besides the book of Psalms, Isaiah is the most quoted book in the New Testament. There are over 40 passages from Isaiah that are used in the New Testament. Just in the book of Romans there are 15 to 18 citations of the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah is alluded to about 21 times in the Gospels, about 25 times in Paul's letters, about six times in 1 Peter, and about five times in the book of Acts.

Now you'd understand why Psalms would be the most quoted. I could start humming the tune to a popular song from the 60s and most of you would be able to tell me the lyrics. The Psalms was the inspired hymnbook of the people. It was sung over and over and over again, quoted at yearly festivals.

And the Psalms were important. They were Scripture. But of the non-Psalms writing in the Bible, Isaiah seems to be the most important book—the most quoted book of the Old Testament after the Psalms.

Isaiah is important because it forms a bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Isaiah was an Old Testament prophet who lived in Judah during the kingdom period. Isaiah doesn't write just about Judah in the kingdom. More than any other Old Testament prophet, Isaiah was looking forward to what was coming next. He was looking forward to when Judah would be destroyed and brought into captivity, much like Jeremiah was. He was looking past that to when Judah would return and when the Messiah would come and set up the next kingdom.

More than any other writer in the Old Testament, Isaiah talked about Jesus the Savior.

• Isaiah predicted that the Savior would come through the line of Jesse.
• He predicted that the Savior would perform miracles.
• He predicted that the Savior would be rejected by his own people.
• He predicted that the Savior would stand silent before his accusers.
• He predicted that the Savior would be wounded and bruised, smitten and spit upon.
• He predicted that the Savior would pray for his persecutors.
• He predicted that the Savior would be crucified with two thieves.
• He predicted that the Savior would be buried in a rich man's tomb.
• He predicted that the Savior would come back and rule the world in a time of peace and joy.

Just think of the passages that we do know from Isaiah, like Isaiah 53, which talks about the suffering servant who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. The passages we read every year at Christmas time are also in Isaiah. So much of what the Old Testament says about Jesus is in the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah is important because it is quoted so much in the New Testament. It's important because it acts as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments, and...

Isaiah is important because it teaches us about God like few other books do.

One of the things that Isaiah was uniquely good at was expanding our view and understanding of God.

There are two primary ways that Isaiah does that.

The first way is by showing us God's holiness.

Look at Isaiah 6 for just a second.

[1] In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
[2] Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
[3] And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
Isaiah 6:1-3 (KJV)

Isaiah was given a unique vision of who God was. He got to see God in his throne room. He saw God high and lifted up. He saw God holy, holy, holy. And one thing that absolutely comes through in the book of Isaiah is the holiness of God.

Isaiah's favorite name for God is the Holy One of Israel. He uses it something like twenty-five times, and it's only used a few other times in the rest of Scripture.

Isaiah was very strong at reminding us that God is holy.

The second way is by showing us that God is the Savior.

Isaiah's name means "The Lord Saves." A major part of Isaiah's ministry was trying to get people to decide: are they going to trust in themselves, or are they going to trust in God as their Savior?

Isaiah lived during this time when the Assyrians were threatening the world. He lived to see the northern kingdom completely wiped out by the Assyrians, and the southern kingdom, where he lived, was under constant threat.

A big part of his ministry is going to be confronting the people, the kings, and asking them:

• Who are you trusting to save you?
• Are you trusting yourself?
• Are you trusting the Egyptians?
• Or are you trusting the Lord?

Some of those kings, like Ahaz, didn't listen and trusted foreign help. Other of those kings, like Hezekiah, did listen and saw God come through in miraculous ways.

So Isaiah reminds us that we need a Savior and that we can't save ourselves.

So the book of Isaiah is important because it's so quoted in the New Testament, because it's a bridge to the New Testament, and because of what it teaches us about God.

2. How the book of Isaiah introduces itself.

The second thing I want to do is talk about how the book introduces itself. Look again at verse 1:

[1] The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Isaiah 1:1 (KJV)

In this one verse we have a what, we have a who, and we have a when—three things that are going to be important as we cover this book. Let's quickly look at all three of them.

The "what" of Isaiah.

The verse says, "The vision of Isaiah." So Isaiah is a vision. A singular vision.

When you read it, it's actually an anthology of the works and sermons of Isaiah. It's a bunch of stories, sermons, and writings from Isaiah's ministry as a prophet.

What seems to happen is that God instructed Isaiah to get all his notes together at the end of his life and put together a single summation of his work. That summation serves as a vision of God—a vision of what God was trying to teach through Isaiah.

It's like God is saying to us, "Hey, you—you who are just so focused on your life, you who are trying to do everything yourself. Hey, there's another way of looking at the world. There's another vision, another way of seeing the world. Are you interested?"

Isaiah presents a God-centered way of seeing the world. In Isaiah we get to see God's vision for the world, God's vision for Israel and Judah, God's vision of history, and God's vision of redemption.

So that is the what of Isaiah: a vision.

The "who" of Isaiah

Now there are two parts to this. The first part is Isaiah, the son of Amoz. We don't really know a whole lot about Isaiah, but we know a few things. We know that he was married and that he had a couple of children. He seems to be from Jerusalem. Tradition says that his father was the brother of the king, so he was part of the royal family. That seems to make sense because he was very articulate and a gifted writer.

And we know his name. The name of Isaiah means "the Lord saves."

The second part of this is about the people. It says concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Isaiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom during the end of the divided kingdom era. He lived to see the northern kingdom be completely destroyed by Assyria, and his primary prophetic concern is on Judah and Jerusalem.

Now he writes about the other nations, but he's always coming back to Judah and Jerusalem—to God's people.

The "when" of Isaiah

Verse one says: "in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah."

Isaiah's ministry lasted around 50 years, starting with King Uzziah. King Uzziah was one of the best godly kings in Judah. Because of that, Judah was kind of at its high point under King Uzziah when Isaiah started his ministry.

But it was also around that time that the Assyrians were starting to pop up and flex their muscles as a world superpower and a terrorizer of the nations. During this 50-year period Isaiah is going to watch Israel fall to the Assyrians, and then he's going to watch Judah be tempted, because they were a real threat to Judah, where he lived.

Many Bible students, and myself included, believe that Isaiah was killed by Manasseh by being sawn in half. Isaiah's ministry started with a good king. He saw a bad king and then another good king. He could see his vision from the Lord. He could see the end of Judah coming—and miraculously, God allowed him to see past that end, to see the return of Judah and the coming of Christ.

So Isaiah really is a natural bridge from the end of the kingdom period of Israel and Judah, through their exile and return, and through that long period of silence between the Old and New Testaments.

Conclusion

So that's the front porch.

We've seen why this book matters. It's one of the most quoted books in the New Testament. It's a bridge to Jesus. And it teaches us about God like few other books do—God is holy, and God saves.

And we've seen how the book introduces itself. It's a vision. It comes through a man whose name means "the Lord saves." It's aimed at God's people. And it comes in a hard season, when kings and regular people had to decide who they were going to trust.

Now here's what I don't want you to do with tonight. I don't want you to walk out of here mainly thinking about Assyria, or Manasseh, or how long this series might take. That stuff matters, but it's not the main thing.

Here's what I do want you to take home.

Isaiah is offering us another way of looking at the world. Not our way. God's way. And the God of this book is holy. He's the Holy One of Israel. He is not small. He is not safe in the sense that we get to stay in charge. But He is a Savior. The whole point of Isaiah's name is that the Lord saves—not you, not me, not Egypt, not our plans.

So the same question Isaiah kept putting in front of those kings is the question I want to put in front of us: Who are you trusting to save you?

Are you trusting yourself? Are you trusting your strength, your money, your reputation, your ability to fix things? Or are you trusting the Lord?

Some of us can sit in church for years and still be basically trying to save ourselves. Isaiah would look at that and say what we already heard earlier: there's another way of looking at all this. Are you interested?

We're going to walk through this book on Sunday nights. We're not going to rush it. We're going to take it seriously, because Jesus took it seriously, and Paul took it seriously, and Peter took it seriously. And week by week, I think God is going to enlarge our view of who He is.

So as we start, come ready to listen. Come ready to adjust. Come ready to trust the Lord who saves. This is a big book—but if God is who Isaiah says He is, it's worth every step.

Let's pray.